Axis History Forum

This is an apolitical forum for discussions on the Axis nations and related topics hosted by the Axis History Factbook in cooperation with Christian Ankerstjerne’s Panzerworld and Christoph Awender's WW2 day by day.
Founded in 1999.

"From the start of Operation Barbarossa, when German troops invaded the USSR in June 1941, until the end of the war, Azerbaijan produced 75 million tonnes of crude oil, 80% of the union’s petrol, 90% of its naphtha and 96% of its lubricants."

His assertion that Germany tried to stop the flow of oil from Azerbaijan by taking Stalingrad, thus controlling the Volga, is interesting. Maybe the German High Command (Hitler specially) saw this as a better option, keeping the Baku oilfield facilities intact for their own use.

PQ 17 was not a usual success (disaster) indeed. However the precautionary measures of the Allies following it prove best how effective Luftwaffe could be against naval targets: 1. they sailed as far from the Norwegian airfields as they could (even if it was very dangerous because of drifting ice), 2. most of the convoys ran from late autumn to early spring when LW could not fly because of darkness or bad weather, 3. destroyers and cruisers escorted the convoys with powerful Flak batteries. None of these could defend the Soviet tankers of the Caspian Sea.

my reading Germany never actually mounted sustained bombing campaigns on any aspect of Soviet production, and for much of the conflict Baku was near the end of their bomber range. IMO they never decided between the exploitation of resources for themselves and denial of resources to Soviets. (also lost in some of the above posts, they HAD pumped so much oil, that there was going to be, relative to Germans' situation, huge "reserves", though it was not proper reserves but just the supply chain)

probably the ideal scenario for Germany would have been to bring Turkey into the Axis, failing that to have retained Syria under Vichy control? they could have sunk all the transports on Caspian Sea per the OP, posed threat to the Soviets oil production, albeit still impossible for Germans to actually gain any of the oil except thru some treaty?

Before Fall Blau Hitler said that he needed the oil of the Caucasus to continue the war . After Stalingrad,he remained silent about the oil of the Caucasus .This proves that he was wrong : Germany continued the war without the oil of the Caucasus .

Other question is : would the possession of this oil have helped Germany ,maybe to win the war ?

The answer is negative .It would have taken years to start again and increase the oil production ,and also years to transport the oil to Germany : in 1940, the SU was able to send 800000 ton of crude (?) /refined (?) oil to Germany through a country that was not destroyed by war . And how would Germany stock this oil and protect the oil tanks against allied air attacks? And how would the Reichsbahn transport the oil to where it was needed ?

And, most important, what would be the result if all this was possible ?

In 1943 Germany had 10,3 million ton of oil ,what would be the benefit of an additional 800000 ton (= 8 % ) ? Marginal at best . To have an effect, a lot of years would be necessay, and Germany had not a lot of years .

How reliable are statistics claiming that Soviet crude oil production dropped from 33 million tons of 1941 to 18 million tons in 1943 and increased just slightly in 1944 (18.2 million tons)? How is it possible that not reaching to Baku and even to Grozny in 1942 Germans were able to reduce Soviet oil production so heavily and as later as 1944?

"Military history is nothing but a tissue of fictions and legends, only a form of literary invention; reality counts for very little in such affair."

ljadw wrote:Before Fall Blau Hitler said that he needed the oil of the Caucasus to continue the war . After Stalingrad,he remained silent about the oil of the Caucasus .This proves that he was wrong : Germany continued the war without the oil of the Caucasus .

Other question is : would the possession of this oil have helped Germany ,maybe to win the war ?

The answer is negative .It would have taken years to start again and increase the oil production ,and also years to transport the oil to Germany : in 1940, the SU was able to send 800000 ton of crude (?) /refined (?) oil to Germany through a country that was not destroyed by war . And how would Germany stock this oil and protect the oil tanks against allied air attacks? And how would the Reichsbahn transport the oil to where it was needed ?

And, most important, what would be the result if all this was possible ?

In 1943 Germany had 10,3 million ton of oil ,what would be the benefit of an additional 800000 ton (= 8 % ) ? Marginal at best . To have an effect, a lot of years would be necessay, and Germany had not a lot of years .

In retrospect it's pretty easy to say that more diplomatic policy, more appeasing action with Britain, France and Soviet Union and more concentrating to German own synthetic fuel production, developing Austrian/North German production and partnership with Hungary and especially with Romania had played dividends better than early warmongering. With more investing to fuel production and cutting munition production Hitler's regime could have camouflaged their true aims. At least they would have had numbers to claim to allies: look we are not building armament anyway near alarming level.

As we now know better, Germans were able to produce synthetic fuel in 1943 some 42 million barrels (about 6.7 million tons?). Moving capital and workers from Navy and Army munitions to synthetic oil production they would have produced much more in 1943. Germans would have gained also better results with Romanian production with partnership and investing their production. So it's pretty obvious that march order of Hitler's regime was wrong. Instead of building first armed forces Nazis should have had to build their energy groundwork first (1933-1942) and later their armed forces (1939-43).

Question of price of synthetic fuel is another. If it took extra 30 RM per barrel then it took it. Reality was what it was. The extra cost with that number of let's say 70 million barrels would have been annually 2.1 billion RM. Huge sum of money. But as we should know the Germans used in 1943 for concrete shelter construction (over 80% targeting allied strategic bombing) some 4.5 billion RM. They also used 3 billion RM for desperate V-2 program. In 1943 whole German munition production had value of 35 billion RM. Comparing to that sum enlarged synthetic oil production would have been 6-7%. I don't know many historians who have studied German real issues during WW2 claiming that lack of fuel was "relatively small thing" for Germany. In fact it was the worst of all, the main reason why Luftwaffe failed and why German army lost its battleground independence and became more a prey for allied.

It's hardly unrealistic to claim that in peacetime process and development Germans would have had in 1943 ability to produce and import 130 or even 150 million barrels or synthetic fuel/crude oil. If they had opened the warfare in let's say in 1942 their fuel stocks had been much much bigger than in 1939.

"Military history is nothing but a tissue of fictions and legends, only a form of literary invention; reality counts for very little in such affair."

tramonte, you have to consider that Germany had to rush their armys first instead of the production sector because the Germans saw themselves in threat and despite that, they also underestimated the Allied reaction when they invaded Poland.

Anyway, bombing the convoys or not, the Germans could stand Operation Uranos if they shifted to a defensive stance instead of attacking blindly Stalingrad. Even in 44-45, when facing Allied superb air superiority, JS2 and T-34 85 tanks in large numbers, some huge pockets of resistence remained Far East even when Berlin had already felt. Heeresgruppe B had a realistic chance of standing an attack there back in 42 if they did made things right.

On the other hand, The Caucasus Front didn't felt apart neither, it had to retreat because of threats over their communication and supply lines.

West Allies supply USSR aprox. 270,000 metric tons of gasoline, while SOVIETS consumpted 10,5 MILLION tons of this fuel. The same percentage with diesel fuel. So, the answer to the question "How much USSR was depending on its oil?" Is "Vital".
SU suffered lack of high-octaine aviation fuels,so LL play an important role in supplying Red AF with this fuel, specialy from 1943 ,when to soviet crude oil production drop down.

Aside from the strategic utility of bombing soviet oil assets ,I just want to say that hunting for tankers on the caspian sea would have been much easier than hunting for arctic convoys. And easier than anti shipping strikes in the Mediterranean too, with all the allied fighters,escorts and carriers. The soviet tankers had to travel thru a much smaller area. They HAD to go one way. Sea mines would’ve been a good option. Radar equipped sea recon planes would’ve had a far easier job on the calmer caspian than on the high seas. And the allies DID pretty much sink all the axis fuel transport ships trying to supply Tunisia in 43. The axis were reduced to flying fuel over in Me 323 Gigants. And then we shot all of them down too. Interdiction worked.
The German KG 30 in Norway was a very experienced anti shipping unit. They had to deal with allied fighters from carriers all the time, with long, unescorted flights over treacherous seas in awful weather. Comparatively, I think the Caspian would’ve been a doddle for the LW.

How reliable are statistics claiming that Soviet crude oil production dropped from 33 million tons of 1941 to 18 million tons in 1943 and increased just slightly in 1944 (18.2 million tons)? How is it possible that not reaching to Baku and even to Grozny in 1942 Germans were able to reduce Soviet oil production so heavily and as later as 1944?

Its official soviet data about oil production.

How germans managed to do that? - they didn't.
In middle-late 1942 soviets shutted down a lot of oil pumps to prevent capturing them by germans.After withdrowal of AG "A" from N.Caucasus soviets couldn't restore the previous production level.

How reliable are statistics claiming that Soviet crude oil production dropped from 33 million tons of 1941 to 18 million tons in 1943 and increased just slightly in 1944 (18.2 million tons)? How is it possible that not reaching to Baku and even to Grozny in 1942 Germans were able to reduce Soviet oil production so heavily and as later as 1944?

Its official soviet data about oil production.

How germans managed to do that? - they didn't.
In middle-late 1942 soviets shutted down a lot of oil pumps to prevent capturing them by germans.After withdrowal of AG "A" from N.Caucasus soviets couldn't restore the previous production level.

AriX, I read something stating that the Germans managed to retrieve oil from sabotaged oilfields around Maykop after some months trying, but they couldn`t exploited it more as the Allied begun their counter-offensive. Do you know if it was just a small portion of some less damage fields or it was a more general thing?

By the way, a lot of industrial equipment and workers were evacuate from N.Caucasus to other regions, so, after german reatreat, there was no much sense to send them back.

Do you know how the Soviet sabotaged the oil fields? Some people says that the sabotage worked very well. I think they certainly didn`t explode it, because this would turn the whole field useless and they probably were considering capturing the lost territory back from the Germans in the future when they left.

Its not 100% correct to use word "sabotage" here . Equipment of oil refineries was dismounted ant transported to the east regions of S.U. The same story with the oil wells.
Explosion was used in cases of rapid german advance .